Allah has made us as unique human beings, each having different personalities and traits and then Allah has asked us to marry another with another set of unique personality traits. This is a tough transition for most Muslim men and women, who not only have to deal with their own strong opinions about life in general but also with another’s. Constantly comparing each other in marital duties hence results.
However, today I talk about not the comparisons between a Muslim husband and wife but comparisons between the marriages of different couples. We as humans are never satisfied. Our wants are unlimited and no matter how much Allah blesses us with we always want more. Contentment is not in our nature because as humans we seek perfection and this world, imperfect as it is, offers us none. That is why we seek contentment from various sources, comparing our lives to others is one of them, particularly comparing our marriages.
However, this comparison with other Muslim couples is a dangerous trick of shaitaan that has a rippling effeft not only on your marriage but also the marriage of the couple you compare with. Shaitaan , in his evilness, leads us to believe that the other couple is leading a blissful life and you are leading a miserable one. The only way to fight with these tricks of the shaitaan is to believe when Allah says “With hardship comes ease”. Do you think even for a moment that Allah said this only for a certain person or a certain couple? No! Allah says this to the entire humanity! The entire creation of Allah will have good times and bad times, will have hardships and ease, so why must we compare our hardships with the ease of others? Or our ease with their hardships? It seems like an unfair comparison to make when All of Allah’s creatures have their troubles and have their happy days. Whether they are rich or poor, healthy or ill, live in he city or the countryside, EACH and every one of us have great days and miserable ones.
So to compare your marriage to that friend of yours and say “Oh well, her husband takes her for vacations thrice a year” or “his wife cooks at home every single day!” is not right. Look at the good points of your husband and wives. Your husband may not take you for vacations every year but he does fulfill his responsibilities towards his children, which perhaps your friend’s husband does not do. Your wife might not cook at home every day but she might also save you thousands of dollars on clothes that your friend’s wife buys every week.
So make sure not to look at your friend’s marriage enviously for they may be going through a problem that you are not aware of. And your life may actually be a lot more worthwhile than theirs in the eyes of Allah. In the end what really matters is that whether you let shaitaan get to you and let you destroy your own marriage by useless comparisons or you ignored shaitaan and saw the good in your own marriage and tried to improve it. Remembering that every couple has problems is vital. The problems may not of the same nature as yours but be assured that they do exist. Why else would Allah tell all couples to have “patience” in marriage?
